Surgical procedures routinely require use of mechanical retractors to move a body part, tissue and/or an organ during the course of the surgery. These mechanical retractions require considerable skill to avoid causing trauma. Additionally, surgery is often carried out in a confined space that can become cluttered with such retractors.
The difficulty of using conventional mechanical retractors can be illustrated by briefly examining upper gastrointestinal surgery. Traditionally operating on abdominal organs required a “laparotomy” which is a large incision through the abdominal wall. One of the major advances in abdominal surgery over the last two decades has been laparoscopic surgery, which advantageously requires minimal access and thereby avoids the extent of trauma and scarring associated with a large incision. Laparoscopic surgery may be carried out by passing ports through multiple small incisions, or using Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS) which utilizes only a single incision and single port. Advocates of SILS expound the advantages of reduced pain, trauma and scarring. Achieving adequate tissue retraction in SILS has proven to be a significant technical hurdle, as retractors that utilise the SILS port limit access of other instruments through that port. Suture techniques of retraction are time consuming and traumatic, whilst inserting a retractor through a separate port is not truly Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery.
Accordingly there is a clear need for alternative retractors.